never wanted to tell you. I’ve been thinking about it and I now believe the only way to convince you is to explain why I’m broken and you’re not.”
Dread coiled in his belly. Whatever she was going to say, he didn’t want to hear. With an intuition he didn’t believe in, he knew her truth, her secret, was bad. Worse than anything he could imagine.
“You don’t have to tell me anything.”
“I do.” Her smile quivered a little. “I worked very hard to keep you whole. To give you confidence and to make sure you knew, no matter what, you were loved.”
“I always knew that.”
“I’m glad.” She drew in a breath. “My mother, your grandmother, was a very stern woman and extremely religious. She didn’t believe like regular people believe. Her view of God was vengeful and ritualist. Her beliefs were cruel and absolute. I don’t know if she never wanted me or if she hated me after I was born, but by the time I was four, I knew she resented me with every breath she took.”
He wanted to run, only there was nowhere to go. “I’m sorry,” he said automatically, loathing the uselessness of the words.
She shrugged. “I tried to make her happy but I couldn’t. Eventually I figured out she hated that I was pretty. As I got older, she slipped into madness. By the time I was nine, she was convinced the devil lived in me. She said only the devil would make a child so beautiful. She locked me in a closet. She beat me and starved me. She would scream at me that the only way to get the devil out of me was to kill me and when God told her it was time, she would do just that.”
He couldn’t imagine. Even though her words painted a picture, it wasn’t real to him. No child should go through that.
“I told a few adults what was happening but no one believed me until I was twelve and she tried to strangle me. I was put into foster care.” She sighed. “They were mostly in it for the money but they were so much kinder than my mother, I didn’t care. You know the rest. I was discovered when I was fourteen and an emancipated minor by the time I was fifteen.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, too stunned to think of anything else to say.
“I know. It’s done. I never saw my mother again. I got word that she’d been committed and, shortly thereafter, killed herself.”
She picked up her coffee, then put it down. “I never told you because I didn’t want you to know. Some of it was because I was ashamed and some of it was I never wanted you touched by her evil. I wanted to protect you.”
He pushed back his chair, circled the table, then pulled her to her feet and held on to her. She hugged him back, her grip fierce.
“You did protect me,” he whispered. “I never knew. Never suspected.”
She released him and stepped back. “I try to forget but I can’t always. Sometimes I worry she was right. Maybe the devil does live inside of me. When I get scared or nervous, the past gets close and I act out. Being outrageous reminds me I’m my own person and then I win. But there can be a cost to that.” She touched his face. “I’m sorry I slept with your roommate when you were in boarding school. I was so shocked at how grown-up you were and I thought I was losing you and then I got scared, and well, you know what happened.”
“Mom, it’s all right. That doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. I hurt you. Worse, I betrayed you. I’m not making excuses, Alec. I’m explaining. I hope you can see that. You’re not like me. You’ll never be like me. You can stop worrying about that.”
He hugged her again, his mind unable to grasp all she’d said. “I love you so much. You’re the strongest woman I know.” He stepped back so he could see her. “Wesley is a damn lucky man, and if he doesn’t love you for exactly who you are, then he doesn’t deserve you. Don’t change, Mom. Don’t you ever change. You’re exactly who you should be and if he doesn’t see that, dump his sorry ass.”
For the first time since she’d started talking, tears filled her eyes. She brushed them away and laughed.
“He never wanted me to change, Alec. I wanted it for a